The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has instructed telecommunications operators like MTN, Airtel, Glo, 9Mobile and others to block all SIM cards that are not registered with the National Identity Numbers in two weeks.
This was disclosed by the Personal Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on New Media, Bashir Ahmad via his Twitter handle on Tuesday.
He tweeted, “The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has given telecommunications operators (MTN, Glo, Airtel, 9Mobile and others) in the country two weeks to block all SIM cards that are not registered with the National Identity Numbers (NIN), the Commission has said in a statement.”
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has given telecommunications operators (MTN, Glo, Airtel, 9Mobile and others) in the country two weeks to block all SIM cards that are not registered with the National Identity Numbers (NIN), the Commission has said in a statement.
— Bashir Ahmad (@BashirAhmaad) December 15, 2020
Meanwhile, Dr. Ikechukwu Adinde
Director, Public Affairs, NCC, in a statement issued on Tuesday, explained that the decision is to consolidate the achievements of last year’s SIM registration audit and improve the performance and sanity of the sector.
He stated, “Following the earlier directive on the suspension of new SIM registration by network operators, the Honourable Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Ali Ibrahim (Pantami) convened an urgent meeting of key stakeholders in the Communications industry on Monday, December 14, 2020.
“The meeting had in attendance the Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) and Management of NCC, the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), as well as the CEOs and Management staff of all service providers in the industry.”
What you should know
Nairametrics had reported when NCC instructed Mobile Network Operators to suspend the sale and activation of new SIM cards with immediate effect. The move is to allow an audit of the Subscriber Registration Database.
This was disclosed by the Director, Public Affairs at NCC, Dr. Ikechukwu Adinde, in a statement issued on behalf of the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Pantami and seen by Nairametrics.
He said it was absolutely necessary for operators to comply until the audit exercise had been concluded.
According to him, Pantami directed the commission to embark on an audit of the Subscriber Registration Database. He, however, said an exemption might be granted following approval from the Federal Government through the commission.
He warned that non-compliance with the directive would be met with strict sanctions, including the possibility of withdrawal of operating license.
Foolish Decision. As usual, we don’t expect anything good from this administration
Wrong reasoning that will harm the industry and create more jobless people
This is myopic. They did not take into consideration the difficulty people are experiencing in getting registered with the NIMC. The whole National Identity registration has been a failure from onset. For government to now wake up one day and tie people’s use of the GSM to a moribund project with a two week ultimatum, is unreasonable. Even a year ultimatum is too short. As someone rightly said, this unreasonable decision is typical.